Bound by the Billionaire's Vows

by Clare Connelly

  ‘And you missed me,’ he said smoothly.

  She rolled her eyes. ‘That’s not the point I’m making. I only mean that I’m used to you not being here.’

  He moved closer. ‘It is my baby. And you are my wife. That makes this my responsibility.’

  Responsibility. Pain washed over Skye. How long had she felt like a burden? Like she was someone’s responsibility and never their joy? How long had she known herself to be cared for out of duty rather than love? The idea that he might be doing so now was galling. And many other things!

  She swallowed, but the razor blades in her throat didn’t abate.

  ‘You have too much to do. Melania can easily call you if there’s a problem.’

  ‘This is not a negotiation,’ he said with the ruthless determination she’d come to expect from him. ‘I’ve made up my mind.’

  Skye clamped her teeth together, grinding them out of frustration. He obviously wasn’t going to listen to reason, but maybe she could use his concern for the baby to get her own way.

  ‘You want to do the right thing? Then go to work. Being around you is definitely no good for my blood pressure.’

  He arched a brow and his lips lifted in the hint of a smile. ‘I imagine I elevate your blood pressure,’ he said silkily. ‘And fainting is usually associated with low blood pressure, is it not? So perhaps having me here is going to be just the medicine you need.’

  Skye shook her head, but Matteo moved to the table, holding a chair out.

  ‘Sit down, Skye. You’re not going to win this, so you might as well save your breath to argue about something that matters.’

  ‘You don’t think my personal freedom matters?’ she snapped, staying right where she was.

  ‘I think the baby’s safety is our number one priority.’

  Chastened, she dipped her head forward. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Yes. And I will be here to make sure of it.’

  He took his seat at the table and returned his attention to the newspaper, flicking straight to the finance section.

  Skye expelled a soft sigh. It was a big house. The fact that he was going to be somewhere in it didn’t mean that they’d be falling all over each other. She’d just make a point of staying in her room, or on the rooftop terrace—places where he wouldn’t be.

  ‘Okay, whatever.’ She shrugged. ‘Just remember, there’s many months of this to go. That’s a long time for you to be out of the office.’

  His shrug was pure, sexy indolence. ‘I’ll be cutting my hours back once the baby is born anyway, so why not start now?’

  ‘Why would you?’ Skye demanded, appalled.

  ‘You don’t think I will want to spend time with our child? You don’t think his or her birth warrants my being here?’

  ‘No!’ Too desperate. Too urgent. ‘Matteo, this is my baby! You agreed to divorce me yesterday. And now you’re acting as if we’re going to spend every spare moment together for the next eighteen years.’

  ‘At least,’ he remarked, his expression droll.

  At Skye’s obvious panic, he issued a somewhat placatory smile. ‘Skye, I had no idea you were pregnant when you came to obtain my signature, as you very well know. Surely you can see that it changes everything?’

  ‘Not for me,’ she pointed out caustically. ‘I have as little desire to be married to you now as I did then.’

  ‘And I have as much conviction that you are lying now as I did then.’

  ‘Why do you find it so hard to believe that a woman wouldn’t want to be married to you? Are you that arrogant, Matteo? Do you really think that after everything you did I’d want to be your wife?’

  He sat back in his chair, his eyes resting on her face with curiosity. ‘And what did I do?’

  Skye’s laugh was a hollow intonation. ‘Seriously? You want me to catalogue your faults? You’ve already admitted them.’

  A muscle jerked in his jaw. ‘I wanted the hotel,’ he said with a shrug. ‘It changed nothing about our marriage. Nothing about how you felt for me.’

  ‘It changed everything! My God, Matteo! You targeted me! I had no idea who you were that night but you knew everything about me. I didn’t even know about your feud with my family until a little over a month ago. But you did. You knew all about it! You flirted with me and you seduced me, yet it had nothing to do with who I am, right? It was all a fake!’

  ‘The passion was not.’

  Though it was such a meagre compliment, a tiny crumb of assurance, Skye shook her head dismissively. ‘Would you have felt the same way if there was no hotel? Would you have asked me to marry you?’

  His eyes gave nothing away. He was all ruthless, dynamic tycoon. The breakfast table might as well have been in a boardroom, for how comfortable he looked behind it.

  ‘What do you want me to say, Skye? We have discussed this. I married you for the hotel. I wish it hadn’t been necessary. But this does not mean there weren’t certain...benefits to our marriage.’

  She dropped her jaw, her eyes clashing with his ruthless gaze. ‘I truly can’t believe you would stoop so low!’

  ‘I used what means were necessary.’ He shrugged his shoulders with apparent unconcern. ‘You were all too eager to merge our assets. To give me open slather of your portfolio. That was not my decision, but yours.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed softly. ‘But only because I was in love with you. And I thought you loved me back! Only because I thought our marriage was genuine and your affections were true. If I’d known that the assets were the sole reason you’d proposed then believe me, Matteo, I would have fought you every step of the way.’

  ‘Which is precisely why I had to marry you.’ The words were softly voiced.

  He stood abruptly, moving around the table. He stopped beside her and crouched down on his powerful haunches so that the fabric of his pants pulled across his strong thighs. She forced herself to look away, but not before the effect of his nearness had imprinted on her consciousness, reminding her of how she had felt pinned beneath those legs, pinned beneath him.

  Her mouth was dry, her temperature skyrocketing.

  He lifted his fingers to her chin and forced her face back to his, lifting it up so that their faces were level.

  ‘This conversation is redundant. It changes nothing about what we both want now.’

  His lips crushed down on hers, shocking her at the same time it answered every single ache that was ripping through her. She surrendered to his kiss even when she knew she ought to fight him. To fight their attraction.

  But she was selfish, she was hungry and she had been denied his touch for so long. She needed his touch. It was on the tip of her tongue to whisper the word that was chasing round and round in her mind—please—but out of nowhere his words bubbled through her.

  ‘You’ll be begging me to take you in no time. And I’m going to enjoy it, Mrs Vin Santo.’

  So she said nothing. She kissed him, because she wasn’t strong enough not to, but she didn’t beg, even when her heart was doing just that.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SKYE FLIPPED ONTO her back and listened to her meditation even harder, concentrating so much on being relaxed that she became even more agitated when sleep didn’t come. And, the more she concentrated on needing to sleep, the harder it became to make peace with the fact that she was still awake, so that she clicked the recording right back to the beginning and focused even harder.

  To no avail.

  After an hour of breathing deeply, and picturing a still ocean with a single ray of light shimmering across its surface, she was agitated and cranky.

  She reached for her phone, silenced the patronising recording and checked the time.

  It was just after midnight, and she was wide awake.

  With a rustle of the silk sheets, she slipped out of bed, padding across the bedroom to the window. Ancient timber shutters blocked out the noise and lights of Venice. She pushed them outwards—they groaned a little in complaint before opening wide. Just beneat
h the window was a planter box overflowing with bright red geraniums. They were on almost every window sill in Matteo’s villa—though some boasted lavender as well. The fragrance was heady, especially in the spring when an army of bees would swarm across the blossoms, picking them over for sustenance.

  Skye reached down and plucked a geranium stalk, twirling it around and then bringing it to her nose. There was an almost metallic fragrance that brought back such memories of her first few weeks in Italy, when she’d picked small bunches and placed them on either side of their bed so that they were the second thing she saw each morning—after Matteo.

  He’d teased her for doing it. ‘Melania can get you anything you want from the market, you know. Much prettier flowers that will make much bigger arrangements.’

  ‘I like these,’ she had insisted with a shrug. ‘They’re bright and sunny and they grow right outside the window. They’re our flowers.’

  She had, at the time, liked the way that had sounded. Ours. As though the stupid word could infer a degree of seriousness on them that hadn’t actually existed.

  She tossed the bloom carelessly from the window, leaning forward by a small degree to watch its progress. The air offered little resistance to such a robust bloom. It dragged quickly to the ground, dropping with a soft thunk into the water below. It hovered on the surface for a moment, as though looking at her accusingly, before falling further, dropping downwards and disappearing for good.

  Even the most beautiful things met their end eventually.

  Their marriage should have been one of them.

  Their marriage should never have happened, she corrected herself inwardly. That damned hotel! It was one of many properties owned by her family trust. If he hadn’t made such an obvious effort to move it to his own possession, she wouldn’t have particularly known it existed.

  Was there any excuse that could justify what he’d done? Marrying to secure a piece of property?

  Sleeping with her—being her first lover as well as her first love?

  Could she ever forgive him that duplicity? Did she dare even try?

  A warm breeze rustled in the open windows. She angled her face upwards, giving the air full access to her front, letting it loosen her hair, pulling it back from her face. And she breathed in deeply. Geraniums, people, ice-cream, Venice... It was all so familiar.

  Her restlessness grew.

  She pressed her fingers to her tummy, thinking of their baby. ‘Is this your doing?’ she whispered. ‘Are you making Mummy wake up when it’s time to sleep?’

  She’d read a book on pregnancy, cover to cover, when she’d first learned of her condition, and it had spoken of pregnancy insomnia—a hormonal condition, not related to the size of the baby so much as the fact it was there, super-charging a woman’s blood and body so that sleep became chemically impossible.

  She told herself that was the culprit even when she knew, deep down, that it had so much more to do with Matteo’s kiss. She sucked in a breath, lifting her fingers to her lips and touching the trembling flesh there.

  It had been over in a moment. Just a quick reminder of how he could reduce her to ash and smoke with no effort at all. He had stood afterwards, apparently completely unaffected, and he’d left her alone to eat. To brood. To stew.

  And, despite the fact he’d changed his schedule so that he could keep an eye on her throughout the day, she’d barely seen him. He’d been close by at all times, but not in her space.

  A fact she should have appreciated...but didn’t.

  The kiss had stirred something up inside her.

  A desire that she had presumed had died with their marriage. A desire that was unwelcome, unwanted and utterly confusing.

  Another warm breeze ran across her flesh, spreading goose-bumps with it.

  Sleep seemed impossible to grasp and attempting to do so made no sense. On the spur of the moment, she moved across her room quietly, pulling the door inward gently. She paused, listening for a moment. The house was quiet. Was he asleep?

  The image was striking.

  He slept naked.

  Always naked.

  Her heart throbbed inside her chest as her eyes ran down the hallway towards his bedroom—the bedroom they’d shared.

  Was he in there now, naked, tanned, virile...? Was he in there, thinking about her?

  She forced herself to look away. She had no intention of giving in to her body’s physical needs. She wasn’t that stupid, or that weak.

  She turned in the opposite direction and made her way along the corridor, her eyes skimming over the impressive collection of art—some of it Renaissance, much of it more modern—until she reached the wide stairs inlaid with mosaics. They were as they’d been when the home had first been built, and Skye had always felt a little disrespectful when she’d walked on the practical artwork. She moved upwards with care to the next level of the house, which boasted guest rooms and an impressive library, not stopping to remove a book from the shelves that she’d come to love.

  When she’d first arrived in Venice, a newly-wed who’d believed that all the happiness of the world was before her, she’d decided she’d read her way through the books, starting at the top left and moving all the way across, then sliding down a shelf. She’d decided that it didn’t matter what she read—history, romance, fiction, non-fiction—they were all stories and she was hungry for them to become a part of her.

  She’d read sixteen books. She remembered quite clearly where she was up to on the shelf. She’d had the last book in her handbag the day she’d gone to Matteo’s office. The day she’d read the contracts and started to wonder at the phrasing. The day the penny had finally started to drop.

  She’d never finished the story and didn’t plan to.

  With a determined tilt of her chin, she moved upwards. The staircase narrowed once she turned the corner, and a small window let in a sharp blade of moonlight. She skipped past it quickly, almost surprised that it didn’t slice through her with its bright intensity. At the top of the stairs, a narrow door stood closed. She rested her palm against it for a second, steeling herself for what she knew lay beyond.

  Even on this side, at the top of the ancient staircase surrounded by darkness, she could picture the rooftop garden. The bougainvillea that seemed to have a life all of its own, clambering across the timber beams, forming a sort of green room. It would be covered in an extravagant blanket of purple flowers, so vibrant that they had always reminded Skye of plums cast from paper. But the bougainvillea didn’t have full autonomy amongst the scrambling vines. There was wisteria too, fragrant and heavy with the grape-shaped blooms. They were disarray in the midst of order, greenery and earth in a city shaped by the sea. She had loved the juxtaposition of their wildness against the plain blue sky. She had sat beneath them, reading, sipping iced tea and dreaming of Matteo, feeling the sun on her legs as though it were his hands or his mouth.

  There was the plunge pool, tiled and neat, with views over the ocean towards the mainland. She had dipped her body into it whenever the heat had become too much, refreshing herself in its soothing water, propped against the pool coping and staring at the view with a deep sense of gratitude and a very full heart.

  It was here that they’d first made love, and it was impossible not to carry that memory with her as she finally pushed the door open and moved onto the terrace. The night had been so perfect; every time she’d been on the terrace its memory had wrapped around her, filling her with a sense of complete disbelief. How had she been so lucky? To have met and fallen in love with a man like Matteo—it was more than she’d ever believed possible. And that had been a good way to feel. It wasn’t possible. His love had been a fraud. A fake.

  The terrace was dimly lit—only a single lamp now illuminating the ghostly outline of her favourite vines, giving them an ethereal, slightly eerie feel. The stars shone as though heaven had been blanketed by diamonds and there was a splashing noise that drew her reluctant gaze.

  Reluctant, because she k
new immediately who was creating the noise.

  Who else could it be?

  This was Matteo’s private sanctuary, where he came to escape the hectic speed of the real world. And he’d let her, and no one else, in to enjoy it. At the time, that had flattered her. Now? It was a very cheap price to pay for the hotel he had hoped to steal.

  Colour danced along her cheek bones. Angry colour.

  How dared he be so beautiful? The moon seemed to caress his flesh, spreading diamond dust over his shoulders and back as he stared out at the view she had loved so much. Droplets of water shivered from his dark pelt of hair, glancing his broad shoulders before slipping lower, over his arms.

  Desire swirled in her gut.

  Skye ignored it.

  This had been a bad idea. A stupid, stupid thought. She took a step backwards, moving towards the open door, needing to put all the distance she could between herself and her husband.

  She didn’t want to speak to him. She couldn’t see any more of him. Was he wearing bathers? Or swimming naked, as they’d always done in the past?

  A husk of breath caught in her throat and she spun, needing distance.

  Splashing.

  And then his voice, low and commanding. ‘Skye.’

  She froze, her eyes shut, her lips parted.

  Her pulse was a raging torrent of need. Damn it! Why did she feel this for him even when she hated him for what he’d done?

  ‘Turn around.’ The words were a command and she wanted to ignore them. She hardened her heart to the power he had over her, or tried to at least. She wanted to run. She wanted to ignore him, to pretend she hadn’t heard. But it was obvious she had, and the idea of seeming afraid of him in any way was anathema to Skye.

  She turned slowly. She looked around with great care, as one might lift one’s eyes to study a solar eclipse, expecting at any moment to be burned by the sight of him.

  Only it was less a solar eclipse and more a moonlit fairy tale. The beam of light bounced off him and wisped like a cloud between them, drawing her in, pulling at her as gravity might, if it were silvery and glittered.